New York Life Real Estate Investors has made a $131.3 million bet on Culver City.

Sources said the firm shelled out $300 a square foot on behalf of its institutional investors last month for 400 and 600 Corporate Pointe, two Class A office buildings that total 440,400 square feet.

It’s a hefty sum, but not much more than the $275 a square foot the seller, Chicago’s Pearlmark Real Estate Partners, paid when it purchased the buildings from Arden Realty Inc. in 2008. Back then, Pearlmark was doing business as Transwestern Investment Co.

The square-foot price was lower than the $490-a-square-foot average for the submarket, according to CoStar Group Inc., perhaps because the 17 percent vacancy rate across the two properties is 6 percent higher than the area average.

Tenants in the buildings include Sony Pictures Entertainment and cloud-based systems provider ADP. Reality TV production company T Group Productions will join the mix in January. It signed an eight-year, $5.1 million lease for 17,800 square feet at 600 Corporate Pointe last month. Avison Young’s Jacob Bobek represented the tenant in that lease. Madison Partners represented Pearlmark.

The new owner plans to upgrade and reposition the two buildings, said Chris Hunt, senior director at New York Life, in a statement.

It will renovate them in a fashion similar to its creative-office projects in Playa Vista, including giving the buildings a campuslike feel. The overhaul is expected to be completed in the spring.

Lincoln Property Co. will manage and lease the buildings.

Bob Safai of Madison represented Pearlmark in the sale. New York Life was not represented.